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Monday, April 29, 2013

Solving any problem in 6 easy steps

Do you feel like the world is collapsing on you? Well, you
are not the only one and I am 100% sure this feeling was caused by a problem. A
problem is a challenge or difficulty that prevents an individual from being in
their ideal or preferred state.

Everybody has problems. However, what differentiates happy,
productive and successful people from sad, despondent and unproductive people
is their attitude to problems.

I am going to share with you 6 practical steps that will help you
effectively manage and hopefully solve any problem you may face.

6 Key Steps to
Problem Solving

1. Identify the problem: This seems obvious enough but in
reality many people do not really understand the problem they are facing. They
are more focused on the negative effect of the problem rather than what the
problem is. For example, an unemployed individual may be fixated on the fact
that he cannot get a job. However, his real problem might be that he cannot
meet his basic needs- food, clothing, shelter. The lack of a job only amplifies
this problem; it is not the real problem.

In order to identify a problem, you have to answer this
question- What is the primary factor that is keeping me from being happy and
satisfied to a reasonable extent? Please note, you can never be totally
satisfied. Once you know what it is, you
have identified your problem.

2. Understand the problem:Once you have identified the problem, the next step is to understand it.
Why does the problem exist? What are its causes? Are there other issues related
to it? These are all questions you need to answer before you can truly
understand a problem.

3. Think about potential solutions: Now that you understand
the problem, you have to think about potential solutions. Focus on the problem
and think deeply about solutions, you can write down the potential solutions
that come-up in your mind as you think. You need to put genuine effort into
finding solutions to your problem. If you are dedicated with going through this
process, you will almost certainly have more than one idea as a potential
solution to your problem.

4. Screening of potential solutions: The next step is to
screen the potential solutions you have come-up with. Evaluate the feasibility
of each potential solution so as to determine the appropriateness or otherwise
of going through with that solution. After going through this process, select
the best solution.

5. Implement the best
solution: You now need to implement the best option out of the possible
solutions to the problem that you have identified. This is the most difficult
part of problem solving because more often than not, you may not have the
required resources and/or skills required to implement the plan that is meant
to solve your problem. However, you need not get stuck at this stage; you
should apply what I call the continuous progress strategy if you are in this
position. The continuous progress strategy simply means you do the things that
you have the capacity to do first and then look for ways of finding the
required help to complete the implementation of your plan.

Let us look at an
example, Frank lives in abject poverty and he has come to the realisation that
he needs to get higher education to acquire skills that will help him get a
good job with good pay. However, he has no money to pay for the required
examinations to gain admission to the University. Frank realises that not
having money to pay for the university entrance examination is only part of the
problem, he has to first of all have the required knowledge to pass the exam
before his not having money to pay for it becomes a pressing matter. Hence, he goes to the
public library to study hard and improve his knowledge of the required
subjects.

What Frank has done is to apply the continuous progress strategy. He
has not halted his plan because of lack of finance, instead he has applied
himself to the factor he has control over which is gaining the required
knowledge to pass the examination. Thereafter, he can now seek for help either
from family, friends or even people he meets at the public library who would
have noted his dedication to his studies.

6. Review the problem solving process and make improvements:There is a high possibility that you will
make mistakes in the process of trying to solve a problem. Therefore it is
important that you review the process as you implement your problem solving
plan for mistakes that you can correct and also for areas of improvement. This
will make you a much better problem solver and you can even begin to help other
people solve their problems too. We see this with some social workers who may
be reformed drug addicts for example. They reach out to current drug addicts
and learn from the mistakes that previous social workers may have made and
begin to improve the process. This is usually easy for them because they were
in the undesirable position of being drug addicts and from experience can avoid
making old mistakes. They help those they are working with avoid such mistakes
as well thereby improving the process of solving a big societal problem- drug
addiction.

Problems are an integral part of life and it is important
that we as individuals learn to manage and solve them. I hope this article will
help you in that regard. You can let me know your thoughts on this article and
problem solving in general by making comments below.

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